WASHINGTON – Gone are the plans for a bus tour to the Hsi Lai Temple, site of Al Gore’s infamous Buddhist temple fund-raiser.

Also gone are the plans for a bogus Academy Awards ceremony at which Gore was considered the favorite to win a mock “Oscar” in the category of “best makeover.”

Some Republican National Committee staffers had grand plans for shenanigans at this week’s Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, but GOP higher-ups nixed their ideas as too juvenile and negative.

“There were a lot of ideas in development. What we elected to do was different from some of those things, given what our themes and messages are, given what the Democrats intend to do. We wanted to put together a coherent operation,” said RNC spokesman Terry Holt.

The Republicans are going to take a more earnest approach. They’re sending several high-profile politicians, who will provide a rapid response to anticipated Democratic attacks, and they’ve contacted dozens of TV and radio stations in battleground states in an all-out effort to book Republican guests.

The Bush campaign has lent two people – an expert and writer – to the task, but otherwise is steering clear of Tinseltown this week

Among the high-profile Republican messengers: Govs. Christie Todd Whitman of New Jersey, Jim Gilmore of Virginia and Paul Cellucci of Massachusetts, Reps. Jennifer Dunn of Washington and Henry Bonilla of Texas, and Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee.

The mock awards show and Buddhist-temple tour had been pushed by some RNC staffers as a humorous way to counter the big Democratic show.

“It was going to be funny, and funny works,” one staffer said in disappointment – but Republican leaders stress that they don’t want to appear nasty.

Iced tea was going to be served on the bus tour to the temple – a reminder of Gore’s claim that he couldn’t remember key funny-money details because he drank so much iced tea at White House meetings, he had to take frequent potty breaks.

Funny-money hustler Johnny Chung, who once compared the White House to a subway turnstile, was going to tell running anecdotes about his famous efforts to buy access to the Clinton-Gore administration.

But all that has been axed by more image-conscious Republicans. “We’re going to provide a very polite and gracious response,” said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Holt said the Republican team in Los Angeles, which has rented office space and hung a banner right across the street from the Staples Center, is set to portray Gore as a “reinvented” candidate.

“We consider the Democratic convention to be the reinvention convention,” he said.

The Republicans will provide documents to try to show that the rhetoric heard at the convention doesn’t match Gore’s record.

That sounds a lot like what the Democrats did at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. They sent rapid e-mails to reporters to try to show that the Republicans’ speeches weren’t backed up by Republican action.

The Democrats also launched a series of attack ads aimed at Bush and running mate Dick Cheney during the GOP convention, which was unusual. The Republicans said they wouldn’t reciprocate with attack ads during the Democratic convention.

Overall, the Democrats’ e-mail responses and attack ads didn’t get a lot of play in the media, partly because the GOP didn’t go on the attack until Dick Cheney’s speech on the third night.

RNC spokesman Cliff May said there’s one sure way the Democrats can send reporters scurrying to the Republicans for a response – and that’s by attacking them.